Crawford told police he killed West in Yonkers and dumped her body just over the city line in Riverdale, a law enforcement source told Newsday in December.

MacDonald said after the hearing that he might ask a judge to dismiss the indictment because the two slayings took place nearly 20 years apart.

"My feeling is the DA should have done separate presentations to the grand jury because of the 20-year gap," he said. "It could be a way of buttressing two weak cases."

Family members of two of Crawford's alleged victims were in court when Crawford was led in by security officers, his hands cuffed in front of him. Dressed in a blue button-down shirt and tie and black dress pants with white sneakers, Crawford did not look at the dozen or so members of the families of Tonya Simmons and Laronda Shealy.

Shealy's mother, Arlene Perkins, said she did not know Crawford was her daughter's alleged killer until he was arrested Dec. 4 and she saw his picture. Then, she said, she realized she had seen him several times before, even passing by him on the street.

"I didn't know him," she said. "But he's a very sick individual. I know that now ... somebody who can do that to so many women for so many years."

Simmons' aunt, Waheebah Wajid of Beacon, said Crawford never should have been let out of prison after his 1977 conviction in South Carolina for stabbing five women. He served 14 years of a 24-year sentence before he was paroled in 1991.

"It's no justice," Wajid said. "It's ridiculous that the system should fail like that."

Police said Crawford has confessed to the three killings for which he has been indicted.